KEY NOTE for two-day seminar at SWAMI RAMANAND TIRTH MARATHAWADA UNIVERSITY NANDED, 17-18 FEBRUARY 2025
INDIAN AESTHETICS: NEW PERSPECTIVES
CHANCHAL CHAUHAN
(nom de plume of Dr. H. S. CHAUHAN, Associate Professor, English (retd.), at a College of Delhi University)
Respected chairperson, scholarly delegates present here, ladies and gentlemen,
At the very outset, I would like to thank the organisers of this seminar, who invited me to deliver the key note on the subject, ‘Indian Aesthetics: New Perspectives’. You will excuse me if I say that the category, ‘Indian Aesthetics’ appears to me somewhat problematic. I pose a question to myself: Can there be such a thing as ‘Indian Aesthetics’? I face the same problem with categories such as, ‘Indian Literature’, ‘Indian Culture’, or even ‘Indian Food’. I feel that these categories have been invented by those who naively forget the real idea of India. It is natural to invent these concepts during liberation movement against a foreign regime deriving inspiration from ‘Swadeshi’ slogan. However, in my view, now some such categories need a critical appraisal.
What is Indian?
India is a subcontinent, constitutionally a Union of States with diversity of languages. literatures, cultures, customs, food habits, ethos, beliefs and aesthetic tastes. We see this diversity even in the cycle of seasons, crops and human activity in agriculture, horticulture, sports and creativity. It is a fact that inhabitants of our sub-continent have been bilingual since ancient ages. In my view, there is only one thing ‘Indian’, that is ‘multiplicity’ or ‘diversity’ and it need not be bulldozed by any slogan of ‘one’. Our intellectual community is hardly aware that ancient sages of the various regions of Indian sub-continent recognised and sang of this ‘multiplicity’. For example, a sage in Atharvaveda, recites two hymns which appreciate the land where people of various religions, languages and sects live happily.1
The poems of Tamil Sangam literature too celebrate this ‘multiplicity’ as manifests itself in the ‘Tinai’ concept of Tamil aesthetics. In the words of Dr. N. Saraswathy Antharjanam, ancient Sangam literature belonged to ‘an exclusive literary tradition of Dravidian origin that existed in South India and was as precious and prosperous as Sanskrit literature.’ (‘Tinai Concept: Aesthetics Of Ancient Tamil Poetics Tolkappiyam’, Journal of Positive School Psychology 2022, Vol. 6, No. 8, p.780)'.) In the North, Guru Granth Saheb celebrates the same multiplicity that includes poems of various Gurus and saints. The famous Awadhi epic poem of Tulsi Das, Ramacharitmanas, in the opening itself declares its essence as multiplicity, ‘नानापुराणनिगमागमसम्मतं यद् रामायणे निगदितं क्वचिदन्यतो5पि। स्वान्त:सुखाय तुलसी रघुनाथगाथा भाषानिबन्धमतिमंज्जुलमातनोति.’ Tulsi Das in his narrative declares that there were hundred crores versions of the tale of Rama नाना भाँति राम अवतारा। रामायन सत कोटि अपारा॥ (Balkaand). A K Ramanujan (1929-1993) hesitatingly wrote about the existence of only 300 Ramayanas. This multiplicity is included in our national anthem too. This is the idea of India.
It is a known fact that most of the branches of knowledge, art and literature that originated in the North regions of Indian subcontinent and supported the ideology of the Brahmanical order of feudal era are, generally, accepted as ‘Indian’. For example, the classical music of northern ‘families’ (called ‘gharana’) is ‘Hindustani’ i.e. ‘Indian’, and that of the southern parts is ‘Carnatic’. Since Vedic times Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama, scientific, technical, medical and other texts. It is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historical manuscripts. It was elevated as ‘Devbhasha’(language of gods) by Brahmins and its script as ‘Devnagari’(script of gods). So all Indians under the impact of newly grown fervour of ‘nationalism’ during freedom movement quietly accepted the hegemony of Sanskrit. With this, the various categories of intellectual Brahmanical discourse of the northern India are treated as ‘Indian’. The scholars from the South in ancient India rushed to Varanasi to learn Sanskrit. Those scholars served the feudal lords of the South. They spread in the South the Brahmanical social order based on the inhuman caste system. Since the era of Adi Shankaracharya to the modern times, scholars of the 20th century such as Dr. S. Radhakrishnan accepted the hegemony of the northern Brahmanical order and did not question the irrational and inhuman aspects of the feudal Brahmanical discourse. Under this mindset of pseudo-nationalism, we generally use the epithet, ‘Indian’ aesthetics, ‘Indian literature’, ‘Indian culture’ etc.
What is Aesthetics?
The scholars who discuss the so-called Indian aesthetics have to look back on the same Sanskrit classics of the North such as Bharata’s Natya Shastra, Anand Vardhan’s Dhwanyalok, and works of Mammat, Jagannath and several others. They talk of poetry as: ‘वाक्यं रसात्मकं काव्यं’ and comment on विभावानुभावव्यभिचारिसंयोगात् रस निष्पत्ति: They hardly cite the classical poetics of Tamil language such as Tolkappiyam. In our discussion, we never include Alama Iqbal’s view on artistic creativity. There may be writings on aesthetics in different regions and languages too; we hardly try to explore them. One can see the universal tendency of scholars to discuss ‘Aesthetics’ as a ‘theory of art’, ‘poetics’ or ‘art criticism’. Here also, I can safely foresee that the scholars will focus mainly on poetics and literary criticism and hardly touch upon the philosophical aspect of aesthetics because ancient philosophical texts do not include the question of beauty in their discourse. Sage Vatsyayan, Kokkoka and some others including the author of Tamil Tolkappiyam did write on physical beauty of young female and male (third gender also) of various regions, but those texts did not answer the philosophical question: ‘What is beauty?’ There is a lot of material on literary criticism, yet unlike Greek philosophy our ancient philosophers hardly define, ‘What is aesthetics?’
In my view, aesthetics is a branch of philosophical discourse on beauty.2 However, it may include beauty in creative work, but that is the secondary function of aesthetics. Although the concept of ‘the beautiful’ was first debated by ancient Greek philosophers`, yet the term, ‘aesthetics’ was first used by Alexander Baumgarten, a German art theoretician whose book, Aesthetics, was published in 1750. Since then ‘aesthetics’ got proper attention of thinkers in philosophical discourse in all countries in the world.
Battle of Aesthetic Perspectives
William Blake (1757-1827) wrote, ‘Without contraries is no progression.’ The Sanskrit sages too told the same truth, ‘वादे वादे जायते तत्त्वबोधः.’ One can see two perspectives in the battle of ideas since the ancient times in all societies of all ages. One perspective treats ‘matter’ or ‘object’ as supreme in the debate and the other perspective treats ‘Idea’ or ‘Mind’ as the prime mover. The idealist perspective generally suits the ruling classes in all class-divided societies. The earlier Greek philosophers treated the ‘object’ as primary centre of their curiosity regarding genesis. Later, when the Greek society had a powerful master-slave social system, Plato, in his theory of imitation, treated ‘Idea’ as primary and ‘matter’ as secondary (see Book IV and X of the Republic). In our sub-continent too, a section of philosophers such as Lokayat thinkers treated this material world as real and did not believe in any heaven or hell. For example, one can read sage Jabali’s rational advice to Rama in exile in Valmiki Ramayana, Ayodhya Kaand, Sarga 108-17 in which the sage tells us that ‘there is nothing beyond this Universe.’3 His perspective is based on Lokayat philosophy which rejects all superstitions and irrational rituals.
However, the idealist group of thinkers treated this world as unreal, a dream, an illusion. They proclaimed Idea or ‘Brahman’ as real and permanent. Adi Shankaracharya’s famous line, ‘ब्रह़म सत्यं जगत मिथ्या’ can be seen as the idealist perspective. Tulsi Das adopts the same, ‘उमा कहहुं मैं अनुभव अपना/सत हरिभजन जगत सब सपना’ and also ‘गो गोचर जहं लगि मन जाई/ सो सब माया जानेहु भाई।।’ (D P Chattopadhyay and Raghunath Safaya wrote in detail on both the perspectives in north Indian philosophy). This ideological war in the realm of philosophy operates in the arena of aesthetics too in the form of ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ perspective. A Soviet era Russian writer, A. Zis in his book, Foundations of Marxist Aesthetics has logically discussed in detail both these perspectives (pp. 178-181). Ancient philosophers posed the question: ‘Where does beauty exist? Is it in the lover’s mind or in the object, the beloved? On the definition of ‘the beautiful’, Plato, in the Greater Hippias writes interesting dialogues between Socrates and Hippias, a renowned Sophist. The debate is inconclusive but hints of idealistic perspective of Plato. Aristotle discarded Plato’s viewpoint and upheld the supremacy of matter, i.e. nature. While Plato treats the ‘idea’ or ‘subject’ as core of the beautiful, Aristotle finds beauty in the normal form of an object, its ‘size and order’, so he adopts the objective perspective.4
We can trace similar battle of perspectives in the writings of scholars of Indian subcontinent –ancient and modern. I have discussed in detail this unity and struggle of the contraries in my Hindi book, साहित्य का दलित सौंदर्यशास्त्र (राधाकृष्ण प्रकाशन, नयी दिल्ली, 2024, पृ. 21-30). Any one can observe that poets generally adopt the subjective perspective on the concept of beauty. Kalidas, the Sanskrit genius adopts subjective perspective while defining beauty in the opening of Chapter 5 of his epic poem, Kumar Sambhavam (The Birth of Kumar, the son of Shiva and Parvati) : ‘प्रियेषु सौभाग्यफला हि चारुता’. (Beauty is in lover’s eye.) Awadhi Poet, Tulsi Das of 16th century writes in his Ramacharit Manas, ‘जाकी रही भावना जैसी/प्रभु मूरत देखी तिन तैसी’. Similarly, Bihari Lal, a Brijbhasha Poet of 17th century wrote, ‘समै-समै सुन्दर सबै रूपु-कुरूप न कोइ/मन की रुचि जेती जितै तित तेती रुचि होइ ॥624॥’ (Beauty depends on one’s perception)
Both the perspectives are a product of social formations and advancement of learning in particular time and place. As all branches of knowledge evolve with the evolution of society, so the perspectives -- both the subjective and the objective -- also evolve. For example, the subjective perspective of Plato, or that of Adi Shankaracharya evolved into ‘individualism’ and ‘existentialism’ of modern times. This perspective reflects in the debate between modernism-post-modernism and realism as well commented upon by Fredric Jameson in the concluding chapter of Aesthetics and Politics (Verso edition, pp. 196-213). However, the objective perspective of Lokayat, or Aristotle’s ‘golden mean’ evolved into dialectical and scientific perspective. Yuri Borev in his book, Aesthetics, has elaborately discussed the evolution of the philosophical perspectives in the West. (pp. 44-52). In fact, both the perspectives in the class-divided societies served the interests of the ruling classes of their time and place as these perspectives were strengthening the essence of ‘ghulamgiri’(an appropriate term used by Jyotiba Phule) and helping the masters by creating ideology as a material force against the slaves. It is also a fact that the aesthetic perspective of ruling classes in a society at any stage of social development generally becomes the hegemonic perspective of the whole society.
New Perspectives
Perspectives evolve with the development of society in the phases of human civlisation. When humankind was in the primitive tribal stage, the curiosity to know about the earth, solar system, natural phenomena was the beginning of objective perspective. Then the evolution of tools developed human mind further and with the concept of private property, society divided into two classes, i.e. master and slave. At this stage, classical ideology became dominant as we can observe in the ancient Greek literature as well as in epic narratives of ancient India. What is the essence of the classical ideology? It propagates a message to keep the slaves under control: ‘Humans cannot transcend their limitations.’ It suggests that those human beings who tried to transcend limitations got punishment. The classical ideology of ‘Ghulamgiri’ preached the concept of ‘fatalism’ and ‘determinism’. A web of mythology was created everywhere to propagate this ideology. In India, Brahmanical ruling classes added the concept of ‘rebirth’ and ‘incarnation’ to the universal classical ideology. Pick up any play or epic poem of ancient Greek or Indian literature, you will find the protagonist attempting to go beyond human limitations or predetermined fate is punished. You can see Oedipus, the King, Prometheus Bound, or myth of Icarus. Strikingly the same message of classical ideology prevails in north Indian Purnanic books, epic poems and myths that carry on the essence of Brahmanical hegemony (‘होइहि सोइ जो राम रचि राखा’; or ‘होता है वही जो मंज़ूरे ख़ुदा होता है’). It is like the submission of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’. Wherever and whenever this ideology got a challenge, it took another form keeping the essence of the classical ideology intact. For example, the Christian ruling elite re-invented the same philosophy in the new form as ‘the Chain of Being’. Adam and Eve are punished for attempting to transcend their limitations. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man in essence justify the classical ideology of ‘Ghulamgiri’. Thus, ideological slavery continued and it still exists in most parts of the modern day global village. Now under the hegemony of international finance capital, ruling classes everywhere are investing very huge amount of money and human resources in creating new tools to strengthen the hold of the classical ideology of ‘Ghulamgiri’. This ideology promotes fascism in the contemporary world now under the patronage of the finance capital.
New perspectives can emerge by challenging this age-old ancient perspective of the classical ideology. In the West, the French Revolution ignited the modern democratic consciousness of equality, liberty and fraternity. This new perspective posed a threat to the classical ideology. It manifests itself in the ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and ideology of P B Shelley who liberates Prometheus of the ancient Greek ‘Ghulamgiri’ by writing Prometheus Unbound. It is interesting to note that Coleridge and Keats of the same era could not transcend their bondage of the classical ideology that manifests itself in their idealistic theory of ‘Imagination’ as ‘eternal I AM’ and ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ respectively. The same idealistic theory of aesthetics is in Indian paradigm of ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’. It is so because ‘Truth’ is supposed to be in the ‘Idea’ (Plato) or ‘Brahman’ (Shankaracharya) and not in the world we perceive. The idealist will argue that matter is transitory, and, therefore, unreal. Idea is permanent, and, therefore, Truth. Beauty as an Idea, a ‘verbal icon’ is permanent that is how beauty is Truth. However, after the French Revolution, the classical ideology and its Christian ‘chain of being’ in the West got a big jolt from Charles Darwin’s theory of ‘evolution’ and Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism and historical materialism in the 19th century.
The social developments and new discoveries helped the evolution of new perspectives in philosophical and aesthetic matters. In the debate on ‘What is beauty’ all earlier perspectives either looked at ‘the viewer’ (subject) or ‘the viewed object’ and never took into consideration the existence of society in which both the subject and object interact with each other. This interaction creates the norms of beauty in the social framework of time and place. Now, this social perspective manifests even in the selection of Miss Universe or even in the design of clothes, architecture and all sorts of gadgets we use. The perception also reflects contradictions of the same society and age.
The evolution of new perspectives always faced repression and tyranny. Bruno, for speaking a scientific truth, was burnt alive; Galileo was condemned to life imprisonment. The rational and anti-Brahmanical perspective posed a challenge to the classical ideology in the ancient and medieval ages also. In our Indian sub-continent too, the Buddhist philosophy, Lokayat, Sankhya etc. did threaten the perspective of irrational idealist order in ancient ages. However, ruling classes of those ages did not allow them to spread their wings. They nipped those perspectives in the bud. Buddhism and Lokayat of Charvak were almost wiped out from our Indian sub-continent. (In ‘Shanti Parva’ of Mahabharata, Brahmins portray Charvak as a demon and kill him. We have seen similar killings in today’s India, e.g. murder of Safdar Hashmi, Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, Gauri Lankesh, M.M. Kalburgi etc.) However, during the Bhakti movement, those who opposed the classical ideology such as Kabir, Nanak, Dadu, Ravidas, Sufi poets and many more ‘Nirgun’ thinkers could assert their opposition to the idealist perspective and incarnation theory of Brahmins by forming a strong sect. However, those sects, in a slow process, were assimilated within the Brahmanical order and thus made toothless.
A new perspective in aesthetics also is now emerging with the inspiring insight from Jyotiba Phule (‘Ghulamgiri’), Baba Saheb B R Ambedkar(‘Riddles in Hinduism’), and modern day philosophy of scientific socialism. All these thoughts challenge the classical ideology of ‘Ghulamgiri’ and, therefore, contain essence of evolution of humane, rational and scientific perspective to look at the issues of aesthetics too. The progressive, democratic, Dalit, tribal and women’s literary movements are creating new perspective in aesthetics. These movements build up resistance to the age-old Manuvadi world-view and exploiters’perspective in aesthetic creativity and develop scientific temper. These new pro-people perspectives derive strength from our Constitution that guarantees to ‘we people’ the democratic rights of ‘equality, liberty and fraternity; it also enjoins upon all citizens ‘to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform’ as per Article 51-A (h) .’
1. यस्यामन्नं व्रीहियवौ यस्या इमा: पंच कृष्टय: ।
भूम्यै पर्जन्यपत्न्यै नमोsस्तु वर्षमेदसे।। (मंडल 12 सूक्त-1, 42)
(जिस भूमि में अन्न प्रचुर मात्रा में होते हैं जिस में पांच प्रकार के लोग आनंदपूर्वक रहते हैं,
जहां भूमि पर बादल बरसते हैं उससे उसका पोषण होता है, उस पृथ्वी को नमन है।)
जनं बिभ्रती बहुधा विवाचसं नानाधर्माणं पृथिवी यथौकसम् |
सहस्रं धारा द्रविणस्य मे दुहां ध्रुवेव धेनुर् अनपस्फुरन्ती (वही, 45)
(अनेक प्रकार की धार्मिक मान्यता वालों और विविध भाषाभाषी जनसमुदायों को एक परिवार के रूप में आश्रय देने वाली, अविनाशी और स्थिर स्वभाव वाली पृथ्वी, गाय के दूध देने के समान ही असीम ऐश्वर्य हमें प्रदान करने वाली बने)
2. M. Ovasyannikov, a Russian writer says, ‘Aesthetics is a philosophical science and cannot be reduced either to psychology, linguistics, sociology, or any other special branch of knowledge.’ Marxist-Leninist Aesthetics and Life, p. 41.
3. स न अस्ति परम् इत्य् एव कुरु बुद्धिम् महा मते |
प्रत्यक्षम् यत् तद् आतिष्ठ परोक्षम् पृष्ठतः कुरु || (Ayodhya
Kaand, Sarga 108-17)
(‘O, the highly wise! Arrive at a conclusion,
therefore, that there is nothing beyond this Universe. Give precedence to that
which meets the eye and turn your back on what is beyond our knowledge.’)
4. ‘To be beautiful, a living organism, or any other individual thing made up of parts, must possess not only an orderly arrangement of these parts, but also a proper magnitude; for beauty depends upon these two qualities, size and order. Hence an extremely minute creature cannot be beautiful to us; for we see the whole in an almost infinitesimal moment of time, and lose the pleasure that comes from a distinct perception of order in the parts. Nor could a creature of vast dimensions be beautiful to us —a beast, say, one thousand miles in length; for in that case the eye could not take all of the object in at once — we should see the parts, but not the unity of the whole. In the same way, then, as an inanimate object made up of parts, or a living creature, must be of such a size that the parts and the whole may be easily taken in by the eye…’ (Chapter 7 of the Poetics, Trans. Lane Cooper.1913)
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें